French learning software can quickly teach you language listening and reading comprehension skills. It is one of the fastest ways for beginners to quickly gain a starting knowledge of the language. Most of these applications use at least some degree of immersion, which forces you to use context clues and educated guesses to approximate the meaning of new words. Some will only offer guidance and explanations in French, but many use English explanations and then slowly switch over to French.
Here are some of the best learning French software options for serious French learners (for a more fun and less intense learning experience, you can also check out our article on French learning games).
Best Immersion Software: Rosetta Stone French
Rosetta Stone French is the company that “wrote the book” in terms of comprehensive, immersive French learning software (as well as for many other languages). In its most recent form, it’s a web browser software that syncs to the cloud and that you can access on any computer. Subscriptions are sold in terms of length of membership, including lifetime access.
The Rosetta Stone experience mimics the natural language acquisition that children experience, from learning through context and images and making mistakes. This approach may work better for some learners than others, though children using this software will almost certainly learn faster and benefit more than adults will.
It also stands apart for being a good program to teach speaking skills, with an included microphone and the ability to both record your voice, and for the software to grade you on your pronunciation and diction. The vocabulary taught in Rosetta Stone is extensive, but it can fall short on teaching more complicated grammatical concepts. In these areas, such as verb conjugation, it would probably be quicker to memorize the basic rules, taught in any traditional French classroom, and use this software for the broad exposure to vocabulary and situations. Despite these drawbacks, it does what it’s designed to do best (helping you get functional in speaking and understanding French as quickly as possible) very well.
Best software with a strong app experience
Babbel French is a language learning software that is optimized as a mobile app but can also be used on Mac or PC. It teaches you French using English lessons, and has voice recognition capabilities that can rate the accuracy of your pronunciation.
Babbel’s app is sold with access to all 14 languages it provides lessons for, so that might be an advantage for you if you’re interested in learning another language in addition to French. Like most language learning software these days, it’s sold as a subscription on a monthly or yearly basis.
